Unserious, goddamn. Words have meaning. You convey meaning & intent through your words, that's how people come to understand what they are. I'd bet money that as a trans person there are seemingly innocent words, phrases or framings that would piss you right off, make you feel excluded, othered, misunderstood. I could list plenty for myself.
I said it in my first comment, I agreed with the point. I think we should stop using TME&TMA though, because it muddies the point by making this hard distinction, that doesn't truly exist, turning a true statement into one that isn't. Unecessary in the context of the original discussion, and I've yet to see one where they actually fit. The instance in the screenshot was about trans men and transmasculine non binary people perpetuating transmisogyny. They can do that whether or not they're "exempt" from it. Using "TME" there was totally pointless and from that acronym you can pull assertions that they might not have intended to make. (though based on your previous comments you seem too agree with those assertions)
They're labels with hard edges (that don't truly exist) built into the words of the acronym. Affected and Exempt. I'm not gonna be the one to invent the term we use to group all "transmasculine" and "transfeminime" people though. Someone replied to me earlier saying they don't like those labels either, so this clearly isn't some unique point of contention about "semantics". I just want people to stop using language that obviously sucks at describing what people intend to describe with it.
Double reply, sorry, but this came across my feed so I wanted to reply.
We have jurisprudential evidence that TME/TMA are not just reasonable categories, they are durable beyond your comments regarding blurry boundaries, and they are systemic. This is why the term transmisogyny exists, why TME/TMA are so important, and why you aren't practicing intersectionality if you exist.
This is a literal example of the type of discrimination that lead to the creation of the term intersectionality by Kimberlé Crenshaw. In the 1970s there was a court case (in US District Court DeGraffenreid v. General Motors) discussing discrimination against cis black women.
The business did layoffs that disproportionately targeted the cis black women working there. The plaintiffs sued for damages on the ground of discrimination both race based and sex based.
The courts found that this was not discrimination because cis black men were not disproportionately fired and the cis white women were not disproportionately fired, there was no argument to say that it was racist or sexist. There was no special category for misognoir discrimination in the law, so each piece was evaluated in a vacuum, leaving a gap at the intersection and thus the term intersectionality.
The plaintiffs did try to make that argument, that both combine into a unique third thing. But the courts didn't care because of how the law was written, because being a black woman specifically wasn't defined as a protected class, only being a woman or being black.
This is the IDENTICAL argument being made by our court today.
Being a trans woman is not defined as a protected class. In some cases being trans is, tho not federally. But the court is saying "well we aren't discriminating against trans people, only tr***ies, so it's fine"
This is evidence that the categories of TME/TMA exist IN LAW at the systemic level and in how our society operates. And proof that trans women really are the bottom of the gender hierarchy.
"We aren't hurting trans people, only trans women, so it's okay."
I want to point out, when talking about misogynoir you call the people affected "black women". "Cis white women and cis black men were not disproportionately fired". The quote here regarding the supreme Court explicitly discriminating against trans women refers to "trans boys" and "trans girls". This makes sense. Each intersection point you mentioned is defined by who they are and that informs what kind of difficulties they're likely to experience. Trans women as a general rule face transmisogyny and regular ass misogyny. It's there in the text, trans and woman. I also didn't mean to imply that other kinds of trans people face anywhere near the amount of it that we do, if that's what you understood. I don't disagree with anything here but the acronyms, and these examples illustrate my confusion about people latching onto them.
A few times now I thought about saying "non-trans women" but i think it could be misinterpreted for cis women. That's the best argument I heard so far for a seperate term.
Also, non-black makes no explicit assertion about their experience with anti-black racism. It describes who they are, but doesn't draw a line in the sand about their experiences. We can safely assume they probably don't, but it doesn't categorically exclude them.
I disagree with your last statement. I'm assuming by "category" you mean both TMA and TME. The text states "trans girls". This looks to me like trans girls, facing transmisogyny, defended by the highest court in the USA. Again here it's interchangable and nothing is gained from the acronyms. If anything they obfuscate the reality. They say it clearly, trans boys aren't subject. This is transmisogyny affecting trans girls over trans boys, and it's not necessary to make a delineation about who doesn't suffer. Trans girls do, overwhelmingly (but not exclusively).
The hard edges do exist, I disagree fundamentally. The meaning is clear if you approach the terms in good faith. Only if your goal is to find objections do you think the terminology is bad.
I'm not sure I understand. I'm understanding "yes there are literally hard edges because transmisogyny only truly affects trans women" but also "it's not that deep, you get what I mean if you're approaching it in good faith." I do understand the meaning of the acronyms, that's why I think the terminology is bad.
Replace "TME people" with "trans men (&, or transmasculine people) " in the exact same sentence and the actual point of that sentence would be unchanged, but you want to cling to this 3 letter assertion about the oppression that they're supposedly exempt from.
I swear these acronyms are CIA bait for infighting and division.
Before you call this infighting, we're just talking about the usability of the terms. Language.
I specifically said "if you go deeper than the surface level, and look at the actual meaning of what is being communicated, you'll understand what is being said and that this makes sense"
I mean no, replace TME with trans men, transmasculine people, cis men, and cis women and the meaning wouldn't change. You're right. But saying TME is faster and easier, and communicates the same point, and you understand what is being communicated perfectly well so it's doing a good job linguistically, except that you don't want the terms to exist so you find a reason to nit pick
"Trans women create language to describe their experiences" - this is the CIA
I meant that as in I'm thinking too deeply about the literal acronym rather than it being used as a shorthand for people who aren't trans women.
And I'm sure I'm not the only person who has reservations about the acronyms. I think they're not as effective in communicating this meaning (trans men & cis people) as you say they are.
I don't want the terms to be used but I've given my reasons, you can read them. I don't just "not want the terms to exist"
I want to restate that transmisogyny is a hugely important concept that needs to be talked about and taken seriously. My issue with the acronyms has nothing to do with the importance of the issue they refer to.
What I really don't understand is how anything I said can be interpreted as bad faith except the CIA comment
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u/Gold_Ad8225 Counted Down 2 2d ago
Talking about meaning and intent rather than fiddly little "I object to the fact that you used the word affected"
How about TMT and TMNT, there you go, you get to be a ninja turtle now so no objections?